Links & resources mentioned in this episode:

• • • 5 Keys of Writing Copy That Connects Workshop Replay
    • Speak Your Client’s Language Workshop Replay 
    • Otter Transcription app 
    • Descript (all in one editing/transcription app)
    • Grammarly

 

 

Show transcript

Intro

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to this week’s episode for the Business By Intuition podcast. Thank you so much for being here with me today. Today, we’re going to be talking about something that seems to be quite popular on the podcast. I noticed a lot of people tuning in when I’m talking about copywriting. And so today I’m going to be sharing five essential things that you can be doing to help you write copy that connects with the right people.

So before I get into it, I will just say that this doesn’t just apply to copywriting. It can also apply to your content writing. So if you’re writing captions for Instagram, posts on Facebook, 

or you’re trying to write a blog post or an article for medium, these tips apply regardless. And the same goes for when you’re writing copy, it doesn’t matter if it’s for your homepage, about page or you’re writing a sales page. These tips apply all across the board and I think it will help make your writing much more effective, no matter what type of writing you’re doing.

So they’re not really just copywriting tips. They apply for both copy and content writing. And before I get into it as well, I would like to just mention that the podcast episode that I’m sharing today, I’m sharing a snippet of some training that I did called the five keys of writing copy that connects.

This was training that I did. I did a live class a few months ago.

And part of that training covers the five keys that I’m going to be talking about now. The five essential things, but I also get into sort of some of the basics of copywriting and I talk a little bit about the difference between content writing, copywriting, the difference between mainstream marketing, and a more heartfelt, respectful approach.

So if you’re just new to copywriting and you would like to learn a bit more about heartfelt copywriting and you would like to see me go through a live review from some of the attendees who attended live, where I went through their website and walked through and kind of pointed out certain things that I would change and things like that on their website. If that might be a helpful training for you, it was a 90-minute class. I will leave the link below where you can visit my website where I’ll leave that training up.

So you’ll have access to that. You can watch that replay for free. If you’re interested, if you’re just getting started with copywriting to kind of give you some of the foundational things and to give you just broad strokes overview of what heart-centered copywriting and mainstream copywriting sort of looks like, and some of those differences.

So that might be a really great place to start if you’re interested in copywriting. And also maybe if you’re interested in learning a little bit more about my work, that could be a really great starting point for you. All right. So now let’s talk about.

The 5 Keys of Writing Copy That Connects

 

01. Know your client

And I’ll start with the first one, which is the important thing. And that is to know your client.

If you have been in any of my live classes in the past, or if you’ve been listening to this podcast, then you’ve heard me talk about the importance of conducting really good research to help you write more resonant sales copy, or to help you write anything really that truly connects with your audience.

Of course, how can you write in a way that’s resonant and that your people will relate to, if you don’t really truly know and understand them on a deeper, more intimate level. So, as I said, research is vital. You’ve got to understand what your client’s problems are. You’ve got to know what they’re feeling and you know, have an understanding of what it is that they’re looking for and hoping to achieve, perhaps as a result of working with you or taking your classes so that you can write effective copy that’s truly deeply resonant with where they’re at on the journey.

So, how do you get to know your clients and the first and most important thing that you could do? And I would say do this often in your business is to actually talk to them. The best way is to get on the phone with people, meet them face-to-face if you have a business where you can do that with your clients or your potential clients or people who you think would be truly a great fit for the services that you provide and the type of work that you would do, you know, get on zoom calls.

That’s what I do is I schedule zoom calls. I find people who I feel would be really great to help me gain clarity about, you know, things that they’re struggling with in their business. People who I think might be a great fit for my services and the products that I’m providing, the offers that I’m putting out, getting their one-to-one feedback in a really personal way where it’s not just, you know, completing a survey where you sort of sometimes get  half-ass answers where people are busy, they’re rushed, they don’t want to spend  a lot of time. Right.

So you tend to get a lot more rich data and better answers and get to know people a lot better when you actually make the effort to speak with them one-on-one.

So here are a few questions. I’ll give you three questions to start with that.

I typically ask when I’m in a market research call or a client interview, I’ve heard them called information jam sessions, whatever you want to call them.

Here’s three questions that I typically ask, depending on what it is that I’m offering, of course, but these three questions usually come up in some form or another.

So the first one, and I think the biggest one that we all need to be asking our clients or potential clients is what’s the biggest frustration that you have with X, Y, or Z as it relates to your offer? Or your business, like if you’re doing more of a general research call, you know, if you’re just getting started, you know, maybe you have some ideas, maybe you have sort of this  sprouting idea, that’s just getting started, getting your business off the ground.

You can talk to people and ask them what their problems are. Maybe as it relates to dating, for instance, or maybe as it relates to wanting to leave a relationship, like whatever that looks like for you. So it’s really important to ask people, like, what are their challenges and what are the specific problems that they are facing, of course, as it relates back to your business and the work that you do.

The second question that I’d like to ask people is, if you could wave a magic wand and achieve anything in your life, business, relationship, career, whatever that looks like, what would it be? I think this is a really  fun question to ask too, because you get all kinds of different answers, things that maybe you would not have come up with on your own things that maybe you wouldn’t have thought of.

And it’s a really fun way to understand where your clients or your potential clients or the people who you think would be a great fit for your work, where they are at, and what is like the most ideal outcome for them? So maybe they’re not necessarily saying that, you know, if I take your class, I hope that you can get  this idealistic thing, but it’s really nice to understand what those bigger dreams are. And sometimes it does help because  that could be a really big, broad thing.

You know, if you could wave a magic wand and achieve anything in your life or business,  maybe they would say something like, to be able to quit my nine to five and go full-time in my business and have a full roster of clients with an engaged audience where I’m selling out my offers anytime I put something out, like that’s a really big thing. And of course, if you’re offering a coaching program or a course, you may not be able to deliver on that. But it’s really good to know what are those big overarching things that people are really wanting.

And it helps when you’re writing your copy. It helps when you kind of get to know and understand your clients, but it also helps you understand what other types of offers and content might be relevant for those people so that you can create offers and content that would support them, give them value, meet them where they’re at on the journey.

Right? And it’s just really helpful for you to gain a lot of insight in terms of what your people are really thinking and feeling.

So the third question that I like to ask is what transformation would you hope to see in your life or business as a result of using my product or buying my service or enrolling in this course?  This is good, because I think it grounds it a little more in practicality. You know, people, when you ask them that question, like if you could wave a magic wand and achieve anything, this is like their big dreams.

This is like that big, you know, desire. This is  the most idealistic situation for them, which is again, gives us a lot of room to kind of think and to be creative and to think of all the ways that we can support them in helping them get there, but when it comes down to that specific result that they’re looking for as a result, let’s say of taking your one-to-one coaching program, that helps you kind of hone it in a little bit more and make sure that you are being able to deliver on that when you’re creating programs or you’re creating courses.

And to make sure that your copy is in alignment with the things that people are really wanting. Obviously you have to be able to deliver on those things. You can’t just say your course offers something because your clients said it, if that’s not what you’re really offering, but it does help you again, understand,  what it is that people want so that you’re focusing and you’re honing in on your message so that it’s clear, concise, and relevant  for your people  and where they’re at on their journey.

So I want you to think about something I want you to reflect for a second. I want you to ask yourself, what is the biggest frustration that your product or service solves? Can you narrow that down in eight words or less?

What does that look like?

02. WRITE IN THEIR WORDS (YOUR CLIENT’S)

So the second tip to help you write in a more resonant way that helps you connect on a deeper level with your right people is to write in their words. So resonant copy connects with your ideal clients because they can actually see themselves in what it is that you’re writing. They feel seen, they feel heard and they feel understood.

[00:10:01] I just did a training on this as well. I just had a live class and it’s called the training is called in their words, and that’s also available. And I’ll make sure to link that up below for anyone who wants to delve a little deeper into this and who wants a better understanding of how you can write using your ideal client’s own language, but here’s some of the ways that are really helpful in helping you understand what your clients are thinking and what they’re feeling.

So we’ve already talked about doing market research interviews, which is the number one way, in my opinion, to go out there and deeply and truly understand your people, the people who are the best fit for what you do. So going out, talking to people, one-on-one getting on those calls, booking in those zoom sessions, where you can get to know people on a really deep heart and soul level.

But you can also, if you don’t have a lot of time or maybe you don’t have that many people that you can reach out to, if you’re just getting started, you could always send a survey to some people, or if you have clients currently send them feedback forms so that you can see what kind of information they’re giving you, what kind of feedback they’re providing you with?

You can conduct Amazon reviews. You can collect testimonials. You can find the language your clients are using by  having people fill out intake forms through your website, before they get on discovery calls with you. There’s online forums. There are all kinds of ways that you can find the actual language your clients are using.

A fundamental component of effective copywriting is actually the ability to really listen to what is that your people are saying. So figure out where are your people hanging out? Where are they right now? Where can you find them talking about, you know, the problems and challenges and frustrations that they’re feeling in their life or business so that you can kind of tune in to how it is they’re actually describing those problems.

That’s going to give you a lot to work with a lot of data to use  when you’re writing content or copy for your website, whatever that looks like.

Then you will have the words already there for you so that when it comes time to write, you don’t need to spend a lot of time thinking about what to say. You’ll already know what to say, because you know exactly how your clients are actually speaking.

I’ve talked about this before, but one of the things that can happen and a big problem that I see with a lot of clients is they are four or five, maybe 10 steps ahead of where their clients are at. And when it comes time to write sales copy or write on their website, they don’t know what to say or when they write something, it’s not really hitting the mark.

It’s not really speaking to people at a  really resonant, deeply resonant level, because they are so much further ahead than where their clients are at. So they forget what it’s like to be in that position. So they’re using language that’s not necessarily the way that their clients are actually describing their problems.

And when their clients find them and they read the sales page, their offer might be perfect for them. But the client doesn’t know it or the potential client doesn’t know it because it’s not meeting them where they’re at right now. It’s not getting to the heart of the real issues that they’re struggling with.

It’s not clearly articulating what the problem is that you solve, what the result is that they’re going to get by working with you, or it’s just not meeting  the need or the actual desire of what they have right now. So it’s really important again, to go back, talk to people, do that research that you can find that language so that you’re always speaking in a language that your clients or your potential clients will understand and be able to relate to.

So when you find a quiet moment, make a list of five people that you can interview.

03. FOCUS ON YOUR CLIENT

So here’s the third tip for helping you connect with your audience through your writing is to focus on the client. 

If you can imagine going on a first date with someone and this person is really great, things are going well. And you get to the part of the dinner date, where you start  telling each other about yourselves and they start talking about themselves and they go on and on and on and on and on.

You’re bored out of your mind. And that’s what can happen when you’re reading website copy. And it’s focused all about you versus focused more on your client. I think it’s just sort of an innate natural human thing to feel that way.

So just remember that your clients care more about themselves. Meaning, they want to know how your product or your service is going to help them solve their problem, versus needing to know a lot of irrelevant details that really don’t have any impact on their lives. Don’t are really just sort of meaningless noise that has no significance in why they’re there to begin with.

So again, keeping your writing relevant and focus on the client is going to be important in helping you make those connections. So here’s a few ways that you can focus on your client and make it less about yourself and more on the client is one avoiding “we-language”. So what I mean by we?

So here’s an example ” at XYZ company, we come to work every day to solve the problem of how to make social media easier for today’s small business.” I saw this on a website recently. So how can we turn that around and make it more about our clients?   So if we reflect back a little bit, I said, we come to work everyday to solve the problem of dah, dah, dah.

So in order to switch that around and make it more about our clients, we can take out we and focus on you and now we suddenly have something that’s a little bit more client-centric, “I help you use social media to market your small business.” So it’s speaking directly to the person and it’s taking the focus off of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it and focused on how I can help you in your life or in your business, which is why your potential clients, why your people are there to begin with.

So the question I have for you is, is your writing, or is your copy your sales pages, is it focused on you or is it focused on the client?  So here’s some questions that you can ask yourself to help you decipher whether or not you’re focused more on the client or focus more on yourself. So you can ask yourself like, what’s in it for them?

When you write something, ask yourself what’s in it for them? Why would someone care about this? Does it help them solve their problem? And is this information relevant to their story? Is it necessary for them to know? Because a lot of times we include a lot of details and a lot of information that our people do not need to know about.

So as I already mentioned, a  really simple way to turn the focus away from you and more on your client is to actually literally use the word you Y O U in your copy, because then you’re speaking directly to that person versus them having to read something that feels like it’s all about you, which can get really boring for your readers and

it can feel really dull. Of course there’s always a time and a place. And there’s times when it works really well there’s times when you can do that, obviously there are times, but as a general rule overall, I would say, keep “we”, “our”, “us”, “me” language out of your copy out of your writing as much as possible and  put it more back on your clients.

04. KEEP IT SIMPLE

So tip number four is to keep it simple. Complicated fancy language loses and confuses your audience. So you’ve probably heard this marketing expression before “clear trumps clever”.

” Simple trump’s smart”. And so really this is about avoid using fluffy overused language, you know, when it comes to a lot of coaching websites. And when I’ve worked with clients, I, I see this a lot with coaches. I call it “coachy” language and that’s using words like, “Reclaim your power”, “reclaim your time and energy” and, and things that are overused.

You know, that might be simple language, but also avoiding that overused language because when we start to see that it just becomes meaningless to us over time. So also keeping it simple, just using straightforward language by cutting out jargon or industry-related acronyms.

You know, if you have some new modality or you’re teaching something that is really second nature to you, and you’re teaching this to people who’ve never heard of this product or this service or this type of modality before, or this technique, you’re really going to have to break it down for people.

And you’re really going to have to make it clear so that they fully understand what it is that you’re saying. Even myself. I can sometimes forget that people do not necessarily know all of the terms about copywriting and what certain things mean. So it’s really important that I try to break things down and I use that simple language because otherwise people are going to be lost, are going to be confused.

And you’re just going to go over their heads, and then of course you’ve completely lost them, even though they may be the right fit again for your offer. If you’re getting too confusing with your language, then you know, you’re really going to lose people. So for an example of using simple language, “risky” versus “perilous” or using “use” versus “utilize”, simplifying that language right down .

So something that you can try doing is just scanning your website for any jargon and fluffy language that you’re using and ask yourself, can this word be removed or can I replace it with another word?

05. WRITE IN A NATURAL TONE OF VOICE

So the fifth and final tip that I have to help you write in a more connected way with your audience is to write in a  natural tone of voice otherwise known as conversational copywriting.

So just kind of hone in your most relaxed, natural tone that will help put your audience at ease. So one way that I like to do this to help me kind of write in a more relaxed way is to imagine that in my case, I like to imagine that I’m sitting at like a Riverside cafe, maybe sipping some hot lemon tea with my best friend or with someone who I think would be a really great fit for my products and services and someone that I feel truly safe to be who I am with.

And then I just sort of speak and a great thing that you can do is if you really struggle with writing and you really struggled with writing in a conversational way is to use a transcribing app such as Otter or Descript or even Google docs. Although I don’t find that one to be as effective

and as accurate  as some of the others, but you can just record yourself, speaking into a mic, talking about your, your offer, talking about the problems people have, what your product or service solves for people. And then once you get that, you can transcribe it and you can put it together in a logical flow that  makes sense.

But at least you have your natural tone and of course you’ll need to clean it up and edit it so you can get rid of the ums, ahs and the extra words that we include when we’re speaking and things like that. But finding that natural tone of voice and helping you just write in a more conversational way.

So there are some grammar rules you can break when you are using more conversational tone, it’s okay to, for instance, you know, use contractions. So for instance, it is becomes, it’s.  You are, would become you’re.  You can start sentences with.

And, but, or because, and it is really helpful as well to just use shorter sentences when you’re writing.

A really great tool that I often use as well is called Grammarly, which helps me, and it edits my copy for me. It edits most of my writing and it’s really great on helping you break up really big sentences that become really tricky to read. So that again, you want people to be able to read your copy and it’s legible, it’s clear and people can understand it without having to think too hard.

Try too hard to get through the material. So something you can ask yourself when you’re writing, is that how I would say it if I was speaking to a friend? is this something I would say in real life? Or is this jargon or is this industry-related speech?  Is this coach talk? 

Cause if it is, how can  you say it in a way that’s much more conversational, much more relaxed, much more natural for the way that you would speak?